There was the butcher’s hand.
He squeezed it and the blood
Spurted from between the fingers
And fell to the floor.
And then the body fell.
So afterward, at night,
The wind of Iceland and
The wind of Ceylon,
Meeting, gripped my mind,
Gripped it and grappled my thoughts.
The black wind of the sea
And the green wind
Whirled upon me.
The blood of the mind fell
To the floor. I slept.
Yet there was a man within me
Could have risen to the clouds,
Could have touched these winds,
Bent and broken them down,
Could have stood up sharply in the sky.